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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

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leased Queen’s Hall in Liverpool from 1870-1881. 41 In January <strong>of</strong> 1872, D’Arc was<br />

seeking operators for a marionette production to play at Queen’s Hall. 42 These<br />

overlapping events may well be the cause <strong>of</strong> previous confusion. Ultimately, Phillips<br />

makes a strong case for D’Arc as the progenitor <strong>of</strong> the figures that would later achieve<br />

international fame as Bullock’s Royal Marionettes.<br />

In Phillips’s revised history, D’Arc organized a band <strong>of</strong> operators. He rehearsed<br />

through February for a marionette show that a contemporary described as “the largest and<br />

best made […] we have ever seen.” 43 It played successfully through the following<br />

months. Proprietor William John Bullock then <strong>of</strong>fered an adequate sum to purchase the<br />

entire production, with marionettes, stage, and operators. 44 Phillips finds no definitive<br />

reason for the sale, other than a few inconclusive references to two competing waxwork<br />

companies managed by James Shaw and John Springthorpe. Phillips believes this<br />

suggests that D’Arc may have returned to Ireland to rescue a withering exhibition. 45<br />

Whether D’Arc returned to Dublin for financial or personal reasons, it is clear that the<br />

Royal Marionettes were in Bullock’s hands after late April 1872.<br />

A mere two months later, Bullock’s Royal Marionettes, with their Fantocinni,<br />

41 R. Broadbent, Annals <strong>of</strong> the Liverpool Stage (FIX), 262-67.<br />

42<br />

John Phillips, “The Origin and Progress <strong>of</strong> W. J. Bullock’s Royal Marionettes,” Puppetry<br />

Yearbook 4 (1998): 145-46.<br />

43 Quoted in Ibid: 146.<br />

44 An announcement in The Era (21 April 1872) unambiguously states “Although Mons[ieur]<br />

D’Arc’s marionettes have been performing twice daily for over two months, yet such is their popularity that<br />

the Lessee <strong>of</strong> the Hall has purchased the entire exhibition from Mons[ieur] D’Arc whose personal attention<br />

was required in Dublin. The comic mannikins will therefor remain for some time.”<br />

45<br />

John Phillips, “The Origin and Progress <strong>of</strong> W. J. Bullock’s Royal Marionettes,” Puppetry<br />

Yearbook 4 (1998): 147-48.<br />

34

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